Mike Moser "I Say" Published May 16, 2003

Mutual respect is all that is needed

Like with so many controversies that pop up in our society, the emerging brouhaha over a living history program presented to elementary school children in neighboring Putnam County would not be an issue with a bit of understanding and mutual respect from both sides.
Lead story in The Tennessean Wednesday was a mother's complaint about her son being asked to stand and listen to a recitation of a salute to the Confederate flag at Avery Trace Middle School last Friday.

Members of the Dillard-Judd Camp 1828 of the Sons of Confederate Veterans presented the program which was similar to one they gave last year to seventh- and eighth-grade classes last year. The Civil War re-enactors, some of whom were dressed in period Confederate costumes, demonstrated to the students what life was like during the 1860s.
I can share a 10th-grader's perspective of all this.

In August before I was to begin my 10th-grade year in high school my family moved from Minnesota to Alabama. As my luck would have it, fall of 1967 was the first full school year of integration of public schools in Alabama. Thorsby High School was competing in football for the first time and someone chose the Rebels as our mascot.

My feelings were deep and mixed. I had ancestors (at least 17) who fought with the Ohio Volunteer Infantry during the Civil War, at least two of whom were wounded, and even at that age I was a student of history and had strong opinions about the War of the Rebellion.

But I also loved football. I felt a bit more at ease when the school did remove the Rebel battle flag from our helmets and replaced them with the image of a Rebel colonel.

But I always felt sorry for the four black players who were my teammates and in one game chastised an official for repeatedly calling holding on a big old affable tackle named Leroy Atchison. Leroy would have had a hard time holding onto the jersey of an opponent; he didn't have a thumb on his right hand.

There were many problems those three years at Thorsby but they had more to do with human relations than with our ball team having a Rebel colonel as its mascot.

I have many friends who participate in the Cumberland County camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. I know their hearts are dedicated to honoring the memory of their ancestors who wore the grey, and they love their brave forefathers much like I love my ancestors who were wounded during Sherman's March to the Sea and at the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou during the siege of Vicksburg.

They have performed living history exhibits at local schools in this county as well as at public events. They are good men and women and I don't think anyone has the right to chastise them for honoring the memory of their ancestors.

As for what happened in Cookeville, if the report that students were made to stand, either by suggestion or peer pressure, while the salute to the Confederate flag was recited, that was wrong. The proper thing to have done was for members of the camp to include their salute as part of their demonstration. After all, the students were not part of the program; they were observers of the program.

As for the suggestion of one mom that the re-enactors are revisionists who soft-pedal the role slavery played in the war, I can only shake my head and offer that the very argument she promotes is the very crux of the war.

No one can argue that state's rights was at the forefront of the secessionist debate. No one can argue that the very vast majority of Confederate soldiers did not own slaves. It is history and a fact.

But one cannot argue that slavery did not fuel the state's rights argument promoted by southern members of Congress preceding the war. That argument started in the Constitutional Congress and troubled Jefferson to the point he discussed freeing his own slaves. And Jefferson predicted the unsettled issue would create divisiveness in the fledgling country. Less than 100 years later, his fears came true.

Slavery is the common denominator in every dispute between SCV re-enactors, the Rebel battle flag and those sensitive to what those symbols represent in their minds.

Tolerance on both sides is vital. Respect for the SCV as they honor their ancestors is not only reasonable, but proper. But re-enactors must also respect their audiences and having the students stand for the Confederate pledge to the flag was a mistake that hopefully won't happen again.

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Mike Moser is the editor of the Crossville Chronicle. His column is published periodically on Fridays.